


Trying to Float

by essentialflowers



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015), They Both Die at the End - Adam Silvera
Genre: Death-Cast, Death-Cast AU, F/F, Kara Danvers Ships Alex Danvers/Maggie Sawyer, Sanvers - Freeform, sanvers au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-29 11:07:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15728166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/essentialflowers/pseuds/essentialflowers
Summary: In a world where an organization called Death-Cast alerts you twenty-four hours before you're going to die, both Alex Danvers and Maggie Sawyer get the call on the same day.They meet on the Last Friend app and agree to spend their End Days together.Will they learn to let go before they're gone, or will they die before they even get a chance to live?(THIS IS SET IN THE DEATH-CAST UNIVERSE ADAM SILVERA CREATED IN HIS BOOK, THEY BOTH DIE AT THE END. IN NO WAY IS THIS MY IDEA IN ANY SHAPE OR FORM. HAPPY READING!)





	1. Alex

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! I'm on vacation right now and thought it would be cool to publish this AU. If you haven't read They Both Die At The End, you should. It's marvelous and sad and full of so much hope. I thought the concept of Death-Cast was so cool that I decided to write a sanvers fic inside that universe! 
> 
> (Maggie and Alex aren't based off Mateo and Rufus from They Both Die At The End, but they meet the same way.)

**_Death-cast: an organization that can predict the day you’re going to die._ **

**_Decker: someone who receives the call._ **

**_End Day: a Decker’s last day alive._ **

**Alex**

 

She’s never imagined a happy ending.

Not for her, anyway. Not for her, not for her life. It’s already scripted; listen to J’onn, beat up the bad guys, return home to an empty house and a bottle of bourbon every night. She can’t even manage a rewrite- she won’t know what to make the genre, how to plot every point leading up to her great resolution. The ending of _her_ movie.

Alex Danvers is a secret agent. She’s a scientist. She’s a big sister. She’s a daughter.

But she’s not a protagonist. She’s not a hero.

That’s Kara- the one with the happy ending. The one with the future wedding and the kids and the huge house on the side of the water. Alex will visit, sometimes, and she’ll give cool gifts to her nieces and nephews. She’ll be a stereotypical wine aunt- _happily_ , because she loves her sister. More than anything. She doesn’t mind her identity as a side character because she’s part of the legendary story of Kara Danvers, superhero extraordinar. It’s one for the record books, she’s sure.

She’s tired, exhaustion seeping deep into her bones. It feels like years since she’s really had a good night’s rest- she’s always up, always doing something. Never in her twenty-nine years of living has she ever felt this worn out. It must be due to Kara’s constant, horrendous run-ins with death. She’s never gotten the call before, but it doesn’t matter. She’s an alien- Earth’s technology, although advanced, won’t work on anyone who isn’t human.

She remembers her last conversation with Kara. It took place in her living room, three and a half days ago. Hands on hips, eyes rolled back in their heads, both girls standing on opposite sides of the room like two ends of a warzone. It was a fight, but it didn’t _feel_ like one. It felt like a plea.

 

_“Kara, I’m not mad at you for being Supergirl.”_

_Her sister scoffed, arms crossed in front of her chest. “Yeah? Well it sure feels like you are. It was one time, and if I didn’t step in, all those people would’ve been dead. Their blood would’ve been on_ my _hands, Alex.”_

_“You almost died!” She was so angry- so, so angry. But behind her rage, behind her darkened eyes, she was terrified. She had to watch J’onn resuscitate Kara’s lifeless, bleeding body and she couldn’t do anything but sit on the sidelines and sob.  She was terrified because she was helpless._

_“I was fine. I’m_ fine. _”_

_Alex closed her eyes and took a deep breath._

_“Sometimes, Kara, you have to think of the people in your life who care about you. You can’t just think of yourself.”_

_“So now you’re calling me selfish?”_

_“Yes!”_  


The night ended with Kara storming out of her apartment, throwing in a _don’t text me tomorrow._

Alex got so drunk she blacked out and woke up in a puddle of her own vomit the next morning. That was one hell of a hangover, especially since she had to work a ten hour shift that day. God, she wishes she can just drop everything and quit. How easy it would be to just throw her gun down, sign off the lease on her apartment and move somewhere far, far away. Away from the bloodshed and the screams and the trauma.

But her sister needs her. Her best friend, Winn, needs her. J’onn needs her. Her mother needs her.

She’s needed at the DEO, so this is where she’ll stay.

(If she did have a wish, though, she’d want just _one_ episode to call her own.)

 

She gets the call at two in the morning.

At first, she thinks it’s her superhero sister in superhero danger, so she sits up right away and groggily reaches to answer. The shrill ringtone invades her ears and she shakes her head to clear it before groaning into the phone.

“Kara?”

“ _Hello, I’m calling from Death-Cast. I’m Emily. Is this Alexandra?_ ”

A pause.

She tries to find her voice to confirm that, _yes_ , it _is_ her but _no_ , this is a mistake. It must be. She won’t be the first person in her family to get the call so young- she _refuses._ Her grandmother was eighty-eight when she got hers, but they already saw it coming months beforehand. She was alive but barely, barely. Connected to all sorts of tubes. It was sort of, in a way, a bittersweet release.

But Alex still has years left to live. She still has things to do, places to visit, people to see. She can’t die today because she hasn’t lived the way she wanted to.

“ _I’m sorry, but I’m on a tight schedule. I need you to confirm that Alexandra is who I’m speaking to_.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s me.” Her voice doesn’t sound like it belongs to her. It’s too soft, too weak, too helpless. It’s just suspended, separate from her body.

“ _Alexandra, I regret to inform you that in the next twenty-four hours, you’ll be meeting an untimely death. And while there isn’t anything we can to do stop that, you still have a chance to live_.”

Emily then dives into a well-recited monologue about all the activities she can participate in on her End Day. She can hang out with fellow Deckers, spend it with family and friends, visit all sorts of Decker attractions scattered all over National City. The opportunities are endless, it seems.

Alex can’t do anything but breathe.

“ _And Alexandra, on behalf of everyone here at Death-Cast, we are so sorry to lose you. Live this day to the fullest, okay?_ ”

She nods, even though Emily can’t see her, and hangs up.

 

God, she’s going to need something stronger than whiskey.

 

 

 

 

She can't tell Kara. There's no possible way she can casually add this into a conversation, especially since her sister is off saving the world and defeating Cadmus and being a total badass. 

( _Without her, without her, without her._ )

She can only imagine how that phone call would go:

 

_"Hey, Kara! It's me, Alex. Um, yeah, okay. So. We can't go out to the bar tomorrow night. And we can't reschedule, either, since I'll be dead. Just wanted to let you know!"_

 

Alex knows her sister better than she knows herself and because of that, she also knows Kara would endanger herself to get to Alex. And by the time she actually makes it, it might be too late, anyway...

Winn and J'onn are out of the picture, too, since they're also on that mission. Figures, the one day Alex takes off is the day she's set to take off for _good._ She wants to tell her mom; she yearns to be held by two strong arms, like when she was younger- before Kara came into the picture. She remembers sobbing into her mother's lap about the mean kids in school who picked on her because she preferred to play G.I Joes instead of Barbies. It was so simple then. When you're a kid, your parents are your protectors against everything bad in the multiverse. Scraped knee? Fixed with a band aid and a kiss on the forehead. Sore throat? Cold medicine and cuddles by the fire. 

An immediate, inevitable death? Suddenly, it all feels impossible.

She wishes she were six, and she wishes she still had twenty-three more years ahead of her. If she'd known, she would have done something better with her time. Less drugs, more sex. A wife, maybe. A house instead of an apartment. 

The future she imagined for her sister and not herself- she wants it. All of it. She _needs_ her own damn movie with her _own_ damn script but she's running out of paper and soon it'll all be erased. Every scar marked onto her body by ray-guns and knives and that one time she tripped over a log in the middle of the woods while playing hide and seek with a then twelve year old Kara.

Everything she's ever worked for will be gone and everyone who once cared about her will move on and continue building bridges and kissing strangers and directing movies. 

So, she can't tell anyone about her fate.

She thinks she can let the doorman know. Leave him a two hundred dollar tip and thank him for helping her carry her groceries last Sunday. She also has to text her landlord to warn her that her apartment is going to be vacant soon.

The world seems so scary now that all odds are literally against her.

She could just walk outside and get struck by lightning, or get hit by a bus, or slip on a puddle and break her neck. Her bed seems so, so warm and so, so inviting. She can just stay here, resting in the middle of soft blankets and fluffy pillows until she passes gently in her sleep. It would just be so easy.

But Alex Danvers wasn't trained to take the easy route. She was trained to fight hard, fight smart, fight dangerous. This day, this  _fight,_ won't be any of that if she stays stagnant and silent, cowering inside her bedroom.

She will live this day fearlessly. Ferociously.  Without holding back. 

But first. First, she needs a friend to spend it with.

 

 

 

It takes her five minutes to sign up and create a Last Friend account.

She chooses a picture of herself that she likes the most- her, standing among a field full of sunflowers, beaming at the camera and Kara, the person behind it- for her profile. Her eyes are wide and her teeth are showing and she looks the happiest she's ever been. Usually, she keeps this picture of herself hidden away. Because to the world, she's secret agent Alex Danvers: cold and hard and tough. But to the people who know her truly, personally, she's gentle and passionate about art and an _I Love Lucy_ fanatic.

For the first time, she _wants_ a stranger to know the other side of her because she has absolutely nothing left to lose.

So she only writes honest things about herself. Like, in her bio, she states that she's reckless and closed off. She describes her perfect friend/last partner in crime as someone fun-loving and open to trying anything and everything. She explains that she likes country music but only sometimes and that the Barenaked Ladies was her first real concert.

As soon as she makes her account public, she receives a message.

      _James:_

_Down to try anything?  How about my dick down that pretty little throat?_

 

She snorts in disgust and blocks him. She forgets that a lot of Deckers just want to find people to fuck before they run out of time. Apparently, some non-Deckers have a kink for that kind of stuff, and log onto Last Friend to fulfill their twisted fantasies. Alex doesn't understand but she won't really judge. It's their End Day- they can spend it however they please. (If what they please is pleasing someone _else_ , then so be it.)

A few more messages like that trickle in and Alex just ignores them. Some genuine ones pop up, but the conversation is always awkward and neither of them have anything to really say. 

 

_Sorry for the loss of yourself._

_Dying sucks, am I right?_

_I'm lonely and sad and willing to take a chance on a random person who's equally as lonely and sad._

 

She reads and responds to messages for another hour before she comes across one worth a second glance.

 

_Maggie:_

_I love the Barenaked Ladies so much. At first, I only got into the band because I thought they were actual naked women, not thirty year old men with guitars. But they grew on me._

_(Love the profile picture, by the way- how did you know sunflowers were my favorite?)_

 

Alex stares at her phone screen for a moment, absorbing, before she finds herself typing back in earnest...


	2. Maggie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, I wish my lovely readers could see me right now. I look pretty darn comfortable. (Spoiler alert: I'm sitting next to the ocean with a blanket over my head, wearing a shirt that has a dog on it.) It's so peaceful where I am so obviously I had to write something to mess with emotions!!!
> 
> This chapter is from our favorite NCPD detective's point of view. And geez, is it sad.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: homophobia and a bit of violence.
> 
> Happy reading!

Maggie

 

Getting the call in the middle of arresting a criminal sort of ruins the whole atmosphere, if you ask Maggie.

“Get off me, you fucking-”

_Beep beep beep._

Her partner, Michael, gives her a look and she just shakes her head and pins this bastard’s arms behind his back, reaching inside her pocket for her handcuffs. He struggles and curses but her grip is firm and she refuses to let go, she won’t, she-

_Beep beep beep._

Michael sighs and takes hold of him, swatting her offending hands away.

“Just answer it, Sawyer. I got it.”

Maggie wants to object but she just nods and walks to the corner of the sidewalk, standing across the street from a rowdy bar. The late-night breeze of National City is cold and she wraps her arms around herself protectively.

“Detective Sawyer,” she greets, the way she always does. Her voice fleeting, cold. Hard.

_“Hello, I’m calling from Death-Cast. I’m David. Is this Margarita?”_

And then everything goes dark.

 

Twenty-four hours. She has twenty-four fucking hours until she’s six feet under, laying cold and dead inside a cemetery among hundreds of other corpses. David asked her what kind of burial she wanted, what kind of tombstone, and she hung up the phone with a yelp. Walking back over to Michael, she didn’t utter a single word. But he knew. He knew and the pitiful look on his face was enough to send her into a fit of deep, earth-shattering sobs. Part of it was that she had a sinking suspicion he’d be one of the only people to attend her funeral. Him, M’Gann, Hunter, and maybe her neighbor, Jessica. No one would mourn her besides them, and they won’t even think about her for long.

Telling Hunter, her nephew and only remaining family who still speaks to her, will be the hardest. He’s only a kid- fifteen, turning sixteen in December.

( _God,_ ~~~~she’s gonna miss his birthday.)

He still lives in Blue Springs, the most suffocating town in Nebraska. They had planned a trip for him to visit National City a few weeks prior to Christmas, but she guesses it’s cancelled now. She wishes she could see him one last time, kiss his forehead, tell him that life sucks but he’ll be alright. That he’s smart, and determined, and he can do anything he sets his mind to. Just like his Tia Maggie.

She feels fourteen again- alone and helpless and desperate for the warmth she knows only family can bring.

 

_**Seventeen Years Ago…** _

 

“Mami, _please_.” Her cries are so loud and so desperate; she clings onto anything she can- her mother’s arm, her leg.

 _Please,_ she begs. _Please, don’t leave me like this._

“I’m so disappointed in you, Margarita.” Her mother sighs as she shakes her daughter off her body, letting her crumple into a heap on the floor. Maggie glances up, just once, to search for something inside her mother’s eyes- a sign of hope, of love, of regret.

All she finds is hatred for who she is. Hatred for something she couldn’t change if she tried.

She tries to muffle her sobs but she _can’t_ because her entire _world is shattering_ and she’ll be _alone_ , _alone, alone._

“I’m sorry we failed you, _Mamita_.” Her mother’s voice drips down like honey but it’s not sweet, it’s not sweet at all. It’s pitiful, sorrowful. Shameful.

Her father enters the room with three bags, then, all full to the brim with her things. Maggie shakes her head vehemently, eyes shut, heart throbbing and breaking and beating inside her chest.

“No, no, no. Please, Papi. _Please!_ ”

He just smiles sadly, dropping the luggage in front of her. It hits the ground with a _thump_ , all heavy and worn out like her, like her, like her.

“This is the only way, Margarita. You’re a disgrace to God and He will not allow such sinful behaviour in this household. He is ashamed, and so are we. Will you ever learn?”

“I’ll try- I _will!_  Just _please_. Don’t _do_ this.” She’s laying in front of her parents, tears streaming down her face like an ever flowing river, practically begging like a dog to stay living her own home.

Her father looks sideways at her mother for a few seconds that feel more like hours and drops his gaze back down at her with a look that can only be described as the epitome of disgust, present and open on his face.

“You must leave, _now._ ”

“No- _no,_  please, please let me stay, I'll do anything-”

“I said _NOW_. And don’t ever come back.”

 

_**Present Day…** _

 

Her phone call with M’Gann is brief but the most heartbreaking thing she’s ever experienced within her thirty-nine years of feeling pain and sorrow. Nothing compares to the way her friend screams with agony when she tells her, the way her voice breaks every time she tries to speak.

“ _Maggie, you stay_ right there _and I’ll find away to come to you, I’ll-_ ”

“Shhh, it’s okay,” Maggie whispers, her voice gentle as she tries her hardest to sound unaffected and calm. “People need you where you are. I’ll be alright.”

She's six hundred miles away, helping relocate orphaned alien children. She can't leave, she's the only person capable of communicating with some of them. And Maggie can't be selfish and ask her to come all the way home to her, anyway. It's her End Day and she won't drag her only friend back to mourn her inevitable death. She won't do it.

“ _But Maggie-_ ”

“I love you so much, okay?” She smiles softly and wipes her eyes. “You’re my _best friend_ , M’Gann. Nothing cannot and _will not_ change that.”

“ _But you’re alone!_ ”

“Last Friend is a thing, right?” She winces as she says it. She never thought she’d have to resort to spending her last day alive with a virtual stranger, but here she is, considering the damn app as her only viable option.

“ _Oh, Maggie..,"_

“I’ll be just fine. You don’t have to worry about me.”

Her friend is crying-no, _sobbing_ \- openly now, taking deep, withering breaths after every sentence. Maggie’s trying so hard to hold it together, but her bottom lip is trembling and she feels as if she’ll collapse if she moves from her place leaning against her living room wall.

“Please,  _Maggie, please remember I’ll love you, always, as long as I’m present in this universe. From everywhere the ocean meets the sand to every star in the sky- I will forever_ _be indebted to you, my dear friend. My greatest confidante. Please remember that. You must, or else I won’t be able to go on.”_ _  
_

“I’ll remember until the moment my breath leaves my body,” Maggie cries, clutching her chest with a trembling hand. “And longer.”

M’Gann sniffs, then, “ _thank you, Maggie.”_

“You’re welcome,” she pauses, eyes shut tight with a grief she hasn’t even experienced yet. “I have to go now. Things to do, Last Friends to meet.” She tries to laugh but it comes out more like a gurgle.

" _Of course, I won’t keep you._ ”

“One-one last thing, before I go. A favor.”

“ _Anything._ ”

“Can you… can you make sure I’m buried next to my Abuela? You know, after I-”

“ _Yes, of course. You have my word._ ”

Maggie nods, letting her head tilt back and her lungs expand with air. This moment seems like the most _final_ thing she’s ever done. After this, after this day, she won’t be able to look back and remember everything her and M’Gann have done together; late nights playing pool, deep conversations about everything under the sun, _lonely,_ (God, so lonely), nights spent grasping at each other’s naked skin for comfort.

It will all end soon.

“Goodbye, M’Gann. Until next time, yeah?”

“ _Until next time, Maggie Sawyer._ ”

 

 

Alex Danvers. Twenty-nine. Secret agent and country music lover. Sister to one, mother of none.

Five miles away.

She reads over her profile and feels a pang of something unexplainable inside her chest. Sadness? Longing?

She’s so beautiful. That’s the first thing Maggie notices because she hates the world for deciding to take someone so young, so gorgeous. Standing in a field full of sunflowers, she looks the most _alive_ Maggie’s ever seen and the fact that she _won’t be_ anymore makes her feel so inexplicably angry.

She shoots her a message before she can psyche herself out of it, and she’s surprised when she gets one back just five minutes later.

 

_Alex:_

_Finally, someone who understands my love for Barenaked Ladies! What’s your favorite song of theirs? Mine’s One Week only because it fascinates me how he can talk so fast._

_(And thank you, Maggie. Sunflowers are almost as pretty as you.)_

 

She reads it over and over again until her eyes start to hurt and she tries to come up with something to respond with.

( _You think I’m pretty? Have you seen yourself?)_

( _You fascinate me._ )

( _Please kiss me._ )

 

She settles on a simple message:

 

_I’d answer your question now, but I’d rather do it in person. Meet me at the bar on 42nd street in an hour?_

 

Alex’s response doesn’t appear until ten minutes later, and Maggie’s heart jumps through her throat when she reads what it says- just one simple four-lettered word.

 

_Alex:_

_Okay._

 

 


End file.
